Theme of the Day: Cybersecurity in Manufacturing Consulting

Welcome to our deep dive into Cybersecurity in Manufacturing Consulting. Explore real-world insights for protecting production lines, securing OT/IT convergence, and building resilient operations. Join the conversation, share your challenges, and subscribe for practical strategies tailored to factories, plants, and industrial ecosystems.

Network Segmentation That Respects the Line

Borrowing from IEC 62443, we design zones and conduits that map to how your plant actually runs, not just how diagrams look. Think cell-level isolation, jump hosts for maintenance, and change control that operators accept. Post your current segmentation approach and we’ll suggest practical improvements.

Zero Trust for Legacy Controllers

You can enforce identity, least privilege, and continuous verification even when controllers cannot run agents. Use protocol-aware firewalls, allowlist traffic, and brokered remote access with recording. Curious how to phase this in during scheduled downtime? Subscribe for our phased rollout checklist and timeline templates.

Monitoring Engineers Actually Use

Dashboards should talk in production language—batches, cells, recipes—not just ports and IPs. We integrate OT telemetry so engineers see actionable anomalies tied to throughput and quality metrics. What would make your team open the dashboard daily? Comment with two must-have views.

Supply Chain and Vendor Access: Your Biggest Blind Spot

Remote Access That Earns Trust

Contractors need speed; you need control. Implement time-bound, ticketed access with MFA, session recording, and approval workflows that tie directly to work orders. Have you mapped every modem, VPN, and support tunnel into your plant? Share your inventory status and we’ll recommend next steps.

SBOMs and Firmware Integrity for Industrial Devices

Request software bills of materials for PLCs, drives, and HMIs so vulnerabilities surface before they bite. Pair this with signed firmware policies and maintenance windows for controlled updates. Want a supplier questionnaire that actually works? Subscribe and we’ll send our concise template.

Procurement as a Security Control

Bake cybersecurity into RFQs: hardening guides, default credential policies, lifecycle support, and patch availability. This shifts security left and avoids expensive retrofits. What requirement has saved you the most pain? Comment so others can borrow your best clause.

People, Culture, and the Shop-Floor Reality

Five-minute refreshers at shift start, posted near HMIs, beat hour-long lectures nobody remembers. We focus on passwords, badge sharing, and USB hygiene with context from yesterday’s incidents. Subscribe for printable micro-lessons you can deploy next week.

People, Culture, and the Shop-Floor Reality

Simulations referencing maintenance tickets or calibration notices feel real and teach relevant vigilance. Celebrate near-misses to reinforce positive culture, not shame. What phishing themes fooled your team most? Share anonymously to help others prepare smarter.

Compliance That Drives Performance

We map security levels to actual plant boundaries, then define zones and conduits aligned to maintenance realities. Engineers see why controls matter because they improve uptime, not just audits. Comment if a one-page primer would help your leadership team.

Compliance That Drives Performance

Tie patch windows to planned downtime, access reviews to contractor rotations, and anomaly alerts to quality gates. When security moves the same needles operations cares about, adoption follows. Subscribe for our KPI mapping worksheet tailored to manufacturing.